Biography

Since 2016, Carolina Bizama, Ph.D. in Science, has been pursuing a line of research that has enabled the culturing of organoids for different types of cancers, replicating a global phenomenon: 3D models have become a useful preclinical platform for “precision medicine,” due to their capacity to represent the patient’s tumor and assess or predict the response to a given treatment.

“Tumor tissues have stem cells, like regular stem cells found in all people, but cancerous.” By obtaining a sample of the cancerous tissue, you can obtain stem cells that, when stimulated, are able to form a complete tissue like the original cancer in 15 to 30 days, but in a laboratory dish,” explains Bizama. The investigator believes that, while results are obtained quickly, they could be improved even more, as time is one of the scarcest resources for those suffering from this disease.

The organoid is representative of the patient’s tumor, so it allows medical personnel to observe the cancer, see the genetic or molecular alterations that may be occurring, and test whether or not a treatment will be effective in the clinical stage. According to Bizama, “the idea is to use it as a predictor of the patient’s response to chemotherapy or as a tool to search for molecular signaling pathways that are altered in that tumor or in the genes. The latter will help with identifying inhibitors that could be potential therapy targets for that specific cancer.”

Among its advantages, the scientist highlights that this methodology has been considered an alternative to the implantation of tumors in animals. “3D models are replacing work with animals, with all of its ethical dilemmas, and also cellular work, where changes over time or clones clones that grow more than others can reduce precision.

In light of the above, Bizama says they are trying to improve the model to as quickly as possible, and thus advance towards a protocol that enables “delivering a report to the oncologist that prevents the patient from being exposed to an invasive cytotoxic therapy with serious side effects, and which may also be ineffective.” This means that care providers can seek other alternatives earlier that will extend the patient’s life as long as possible.

Lastly, Carolina Bizama’s plans for 3D culturing also include the option of observing which genes could be altered among the Chilean population and which factors could influence the formation of certain types of cancers over others. The other idea is to create a biobank with these organoids, to make them available to other researchers studying aspects of cancer biology or responses to other therapeutic agents.